Hard to Escape - Chapter 17.2

Only after I rushed over to tell him of today’s mishap did his expression soften. “Then what happened to that person after that?”

I curled my lip. “I don’t know either, he probably left already. It’s too bad he took that paper ball with him.”

Yin Li was surprisingly quite interested in this matter, and furthermore managed to grasp the key point. “What did you write in there?”

“My response to you of course!” Then, feeling a bit shy, I changed the topic. “Do you think that guy will come back?”

Yin Li’s eyes lit up, dispersing the gloominess in them earlier. But then a moment later his complicated expression returned. “Then he’s seen its contents as well as your face.” From his tone of voice, he seemed to be pondering something.

Then he suppressed the contemplative look on his face and smiled, coming over to rub my head. “This time I really was too careless. I won’t let him have any opportunity to come close to you again. I’ll retrieve the paper ball as well, but before that I have something to give you.”

Following these words Yin Li turned and went into the study. He came back with a box and opened it to reveal a green jade bangle. “In the Yin family, this is supposed to belong to the new lady of the household. My parents left it behind. If they were still here, I’m sure that they would really like you.”

Lately I’d been drowning in Yin Li’s gifts, and now I shuddered slightly as I let him slide the bangle onto my wrist. The size was perfect. The jade was a vibrant green color, and the contrast made my wrist appear even more slender. It gave off a very refined air, but unexpectedly when paired with this face of mine, the feeling grew more and more tacky. The result was that the original character of the bangle was warped until it seemed like an accessory worn by the nouveau riche.

But in the face of this incompatibility Yin Li could still come up with some sincere praise, saying, “It suits you perfectly.” Then he kissed my eyelids. “I’ll also transfer this house over to you, so that it’s under your name. All this time I still haven’t been able to find your parents, so take it as them giving you this house as your dowry.”

Yin Li smiled. “Didn’t you like your men handsome, rich and stupid? Now, compared to Mo Xing Zhi, don’t I surpass him in all three regards?

I couldn’t help but laugh. Grabbing an ink brush, I commanded, “Give me your hand.”

Yin Li obediently stretched his hand out to me and I grabbed his wrist. Flipping it over onto its back, I nimbly drew a watch. After I’d finished the watch face, I carefully drew a strap. Then with a flourish, I wrote three big characters all over the watch face and wrist strap.

Yin Li gave me a teasing glance, “Rolex?”1

1 The Chinese name of of Rolex is 劳力士, Lao li shi. Don’t ask me how Rolex -> Lao Li Shi, idk either…

I nodded solemnly. “Engagement gift.”

Yin Li squinted and looked at the “Rolex.” written on his wrist. “Give me your hand too.” As he spoke, he directly pulled my hand over.

“Don’t curl up your fingers, relax your hand.”

I obediently complied with his orders. Stretching out a finger, Yin Li lightly traced the life line2 on my palm. Then he took up the brush, and around a fifth of the way along of my life line, he wrote something. His head was lowered and he moved the brush slowly and earnestly. Some of his hair fell forwards, blocking my view. I could only feel a ticklish sensation along my life line.

2 For the curious, this is what the life line is:

“Alright, this is also one of my gifts to you.”

I looked down. Turns out that starting from around 20% of the way down my life line, Yin Li had written something: his own name. His handwriting was very pretty, and he had meticulously wrote it so that the characters covered the entire remaining length of my life line.

“If we can live a hundred years, the time I met you can be counted as a fifth of the way through your life. From now on, my presence will occupy a spot next to you on this road and accompany you for the rest of your life. Along with everything else, I will give my life to you.”

As Yin Li spoke these words, he stared at me with his deep, dark eyes. When I withdrew my hand, my fingers closed around his name in the center of my palm. Men with beautiful eyes really have an unfair advantage. When they wholeheartedly stare at you, when the only thing appearing in their eyes is your reflection, they say the sweetest words of love. The destructive ability of this is simply incredible, its too moving for the heart to bear.

But my mouth blurted out another line. “How come I never discovered that you can say such romantic and sentimental things. All the gossip about you says that you’re cold and unfeeling.”

Hearing this, Yin Li laughed very happily. Then lowering his head, he said by my ear, “This depends on who I’m with.” He paused. “I’ll admit, when you got amnesia, I felt a bit conflicted and was reluctant to forget the past you, so I behaved with some of my past coldness to you. But now, my love for you is far greater than before. I want to spend my life with you, and hope that our future only grows even longer and even more beautiful. So that it makes up for what’s lost.” After saying this, his kiss landed on my ear.

This was such a sweet and lovey-dovey moment, we didn’t notice that downstairs someone had unlocked the door with a key and was now making their way up the stairs.

But now I was the first to notice that there was someone else here. I pushed him a little, and he clearly wasn’t happy to be disturbed. Frowning, he turned to look at the person standing atop the staircase.

The person had a tall figure, with exceptional and somewhat familiar facial features. Currently, her whole face had gone pale as she looked as us. Or to put it more accurately, her eyes were fixated on me, and she looked as if she had seen a ghost. Her beautiful eyes, which both resembled and slightly differed from Yin Li’s, were completely filled with terror.

Her voice trembled as she asked Yin Li, “Ge, what’s going on here?” Her tone held faint traces of anger, and she spoke in the commanding way that powerful people were accustomed to when they exerted their power. At this, I remembered where I had seen her face.

She was Yin Li’s little sister who did ballet.

And at this moment her expression as she stared at me was as if she had some deep enmity with me. Though she did her best to suppress it, the feelings of disgust that she felt for me were too strong, and some still leaked out. The atmosphere was so tense, it was if there was gunpowder in the air that could ignite any moment.

Yin Li’s expression deepened, growing stern. “Yin Xuan, I was just about to ask: Why didn’t you notify me beforehand that you were coming back?” Then he pulled me behind him and rubbed my head. “This is Yan Xiao, my fiancee. You haven’t met her yet, she had amnesia and lost all her memories.” His firmly emphasized the word “fiancee”, and his protective intentions were clear.

Yet when Yin Xuan heard this word, her tone sounded like she was shocked beyond disbelief. “Ge, what even, what are you even thinking?”

She apparently used all of her strength to squeeze out that sentence. Then with a ghastly pale face filled with hatred, she looked at me and furiously gritted her teeth. But then she suddenly let out a nervous laugh. “Ge, do you know that he’s also returned? Now, I also no longer know how this matter should be concluded.” After saying her piece, she slammed the door on the way out. The loud bang sent a shudder up my spine.

Yin Li rubbed the space between his brows as if his head hurt. He pulled me over and said a few lines to comfort me, then kissed my face. “Yin Xuan has always been overly headstrong. Her personality can also be a bit extreme. She’s always hoped that I’d end up with her best friend, so when she saw you, her emotions were a bit fierce. I’m worried about her going out with such an unstable mood right now, so after this I’m going out to find her, and at the same time have a talk with her. I’ll be right back. Tomorrow, I’ll have her apologize to you. Her behavior tonight really was unacceptable for her upbringing.”

I nodded my head. Yin Li came back over and kissed my eyes. “Don’t let your imagination run wild, Yin Xuan just has a temper like a child. Go to sleep early, you don’t need to wait for me.” After saying this, he took his car keys and left.。

I was now standing all alone by myself in the hall.

The whole sequence of events took no more than 10 minutes. And this pair of siblings’ words were like some demonic cult’s code words. I was totally mystified by it all and couldn’t figure out what was going on. But from their interactions, which were like one wild, perilous twist after another, there seemed to be some juicy, thrilling secrets in this upper-class family. The more Yin Li didn’t want my imagination to run wild, the harder it was to for me to control my thoughts. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I had touched upon some incredibly disastrous secret. It was like a maelstrom. But I didn’t feel any of the excited thrills one usually got from peeping in on a secret, I instead felt faintly uneasy, because I had a crazy suspicion.

When I had been recovering in the hospital from my amnesia, I had read many romance novels about ill-fated high-society romances. Out of thirty angst-filled high society romances, ten had included something about incest.。

According to all the signs laid out before me, I feared that Yin Xuan had some deep, forbidden feelings for Yin Li. The stuff about Yin Xuan’s best friend was probably an excuse, the truth was probably that her violent possessiveness over Yin Li was so extreme that she couldn’t tolerate my presence.

This suspicion had me tossing and turning all night. I wasn’t afraid of facing the other big mess of women as opponents, but the thought of my future sister-in-law as a rival in love gave me sense of tremendous pressure. Duking it out with a mistress was easy. Duking it out with a sister-turned-mistress was hard!

With this thought in the forefront of my mind, it was even more impossible for me to sleep. And it was already clearly almost dawn yet Yin Li still hadn’t returned. The texts I sent him had also received no response. Finally at my wits end, I climbed out of bed and cracked open a bottle of red wine, my left eyelid twitching all the while.

Sigh, this really was an endless night of suffering, making me completely not in the mood to sleep.

Candle: Another extremely fluffy chapter…but with another ominous ending……

Btw, Yin Xuan calls Yin Li “Ge”, this is just the shortened version of “Gege” (pronounced like guh-guh) It’s essentially a shortened and more casual form of the Chinese word for “brother”, but I didn’t really want to translate it into “Bro” or smth stupid like that and I couldn’t think of any other shortened forms of “brother” so I left it as “Ge”.

Btw has anyone read the English translation of Coiling Dragon before?? I think they straight-up translated all the “ge”s into “bro” hence the rEALLY weird and immersion-destroying, constant “THIRD BRO” “SECOND BRO” “nTH BRO” nonsense, lol. IMO “bro” is a bad translation for “ge” since “bro” is more…idk…… silly-sounding.

/rant

*cough* Anyway, what do you guys think? Pls comment your thoughts on the validity of YX’s suspicions, lol.

Chapter end